Plateau Strategy(7470531758).jpg)
The story
The Ferry Building opened in 1898 as the city gate for travelers arriving by water. Its clock tower rose above a great arched train shed where ferries met streetcars, rail lines and the growing city. The building survived the 1906 earthquake, even as fire remade neighborhoods around it.
Bridges reduced ferry traffic, and the Embarcadero Freeway later hid the building from much of the city. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged that freeway. Its removal reopened the waterfront and made the old terminal visible again. A restoration completed in 2003 brought ferries, food businesses and the public market into the same building.
Stand under the clock, then walk through to the bay side. The beauty is the change in scale: stone arches behind you, open water ahead, ferries moving between them. That view begins the route north toward Pier 15 and the Exploratorium.